Wachusett superintendent "Needs Improvement"

HOLDEN — Six months into his tenure as superintendent of the Wachusett Regional School District, Darryll McCall has some work to do.

Mr. McCall, who received his end-of-cycle evaluation at the school committee's regular meeting last week, received 9.5 overall ratings of "Needs Improvement," 4.5 ratings of "Proficient" and 1 rating of "Exemplary" from the individual members.

As part of the public evaluation, school committee chairman Lance Harris read a narrative that cited three key issues that dominated Mr. McCall's first months on the job: the budget, the non-renewal of three school principals' contracts and a security incident at the Central Tree Middle School.

While Mr. McCall was praised for creating a budget for fiscal 2015 that did not reduce staff and programs, the committee was critical of his human resources management.

"The committee is concerned that the hiring of the principals at Glenwood and Davis Hill was done with little regard to the district's hiring policies, and with no community input," Mr. Harris read from the narrative.

In the narrative, Mr. Harris also stated that the committee was very concerned about Mr. McCall's ability to communicate during a crisis, pointing both to the security incident and the non-renewal of the principals, and his ability to manage conflict.

Following the reading of the narrative, committee members had a chance to express their own thoughts regarding the evaluation.

Member William McCarthy said that while he ranked Mr. McCall very highly on instructional leadership, he acknowledged that the last six months have been difficult.

"I hope this is a kick in the pants for you," Mr. McCarthy said. "You need to become a leader, a better communicator and provide better management."

Member Michael Dennis, whose wife Siobhan Dennis was one of the three principals whose contracts were non-renewed, told Mr. McCall "we cannot afford a journey as turbulent as the past year."

Mr. Harris said that while he had observed Mr. McCall performing some of the functions on the rating rubric while a deputy superintendent, he wished that it contained a "Not Observed" rating option, since there were some functions that were not a part of Mr. McCall's first months as superintendent.

Mr. Harris also observed that first time superintendents are expected to achieve proficiency by the end of their third year, and so while Mr. McCall has been rated as needing improvement, it is not necessarily a cause for concern.

Mr. McCall acknowledged the committee's concerns, and said he was looking forward to setting goals for both the district and himself to work on in the future.